Technology for 2016, CES is the new auto show, guess how many CMOs use digital advertising for customer insights, why people share content, Yahoo is off to a rough start, Facebook is all about Messenger this year, Twitter goes big, ridesharing woes, competitive car communications at CES, why podcasting (and email) is on the rise, content marketing tips for 2016, two customer experience blunders, new FTC native advertising guidelines, a new feature — the Chart of the Week, a new book that gets inside the minds of con artists, plus our weekly trivia challenge, the podcast pick of the week and more, it's the first edition of The Full Monty.

We're using Facebook Mentions each Sunday evening at 9:30 pm ET to bring you 15 minutes or so of commentary and previews of what to expect from the week's newsletter. If you follow on Facebook and tune in every Sunday night, you can get a preview and join in the commentary as well. We will be off next week, due to the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday (and a hockey tournament).

The first 2016 installment of #SundaysWithScott - live commentary and ranting before the Monday newsletter.
Posted by Scott Monty on Sunday, January 10, 2016

Industry

Since this is our first edition for 2016, it's time for what lies ahead.

Futurist Faith Popcorn thinks fear will be the watchword of the year, driving people to security through technology, systems and behavior — driving more people to binge watching and the need to escape reality. See the VR prediction from the WSJ for validation. The challenge is how marketers can think about being part of these escapes.

With CES behind us and the North American International Auto Show upon us, it should be no surprise that automotive companies dominated at CES. But Tamara Warren argues that it's not Silicon Valley vs. Detroit; it's a complex story of collaboration and competition. CES tends to be idea- and feature-focused for auto company announcements, while NAIAS is traditionally product-focused. And see the Zignals Chart of the Week below for who came out on top.

With all of the opportunities to engage customers in digital channels, one might think that CMOs are rolling in the plethora of available consumer insights. But no, according to a study by The CMO Club and SocialCode, only 37% of CMOs use digital advertising to better understand their audience. What year is this again? It doesn't matter. Advertising rolls on, using the old shout-and-broadcast model to do its bidding.

You see links, articles, photos and videos come your way every day via a variety of platforms. Did you wonder what motivates people to share content? It turns out that one of the most significant reasons is to make other people laugh. Other reasons, according to this Adobe study, include raising awareness of an issue, sharing something a friend will enjoy, sharing knowledge on a topic and connecting with people who feel similarly to them. Important psychological motivators for marketers to understand.

Sponsor

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"You made SEO and lead gen understandable and now we have a new revenue stream! Clients love how we can tie our efforts to their ROI and we love how they keep increasing their budgets!“

For a comprehensive look at everything that Google's parent company Alphabet is working on, read, bookmark and reread this 2016 Google Tracker from Ars Technica.

Facebook

The Facebook News Feed. It's constant, pervasive and has a mysterious algorithm. And it's controlled by a small group of engineers, some power users and increasingly, you.

Facebook messenger now has over 800 million users and 2016 will be a banner year, from potentially replacing the phone number as a primary means of contact, become more whimsical, and gain artificial intelligence. Messenger is critical for the future of Facebook, large as it is, because it can act as the portal to the retention and engagement of a younger audience.

The service that is synonymous with brevity may be trading it that brand: Twitter is considering extending its 140-character limit to 10,000 characters. And as expected, some 10,000 social media characters got out pitchforks and torches over the rumored change, without having seen how it might be implemented.

Trivia question: When was the first in-car audio system implemented? *

Yes, in case you missed all of the above, it's an autonomous and connected vehicle arms race, and it involves Detroit and Silicon Valley. Of interest might be this graphic that shows the spectrum of autonomous driving according to the SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) — it's not all about so-called "driverless cars." — it goes from no automation (Level 0) to driver assistance (Level 1), partial automation (Level 2), conditional automation (Level 3), high automation (Level 4) and full automation (Level 5).

Audio

If you've been here before, you know that podcasting is growing. Three reasons: better technology, more professionals are getting involved, and businesses are figuring out how to make money on them.

Podcast Recommendation of the Week. This week, check out Social Geek Radio with Deb Evans and Jack Monson. Listen in each week as they discuss the use of social technologies on today’s Web for business. And I had the honor of being their most recent guest. Do you have a podcast recommendation for us? Add yours to our Google Sheet: smonty.co/yourpodcasts

Bottom line: if you don't have decent influencers, it doesn't matter what your content platform looks like. Take another look at Faith Popcorn's observations in the link in the first section; she mentions micro-clans, where spheres of influence and connection are getting smaller. And that's okay. Scale isn't everything.

Two instances of customer experiences that led customers to feel like they were getting screwed:

StubHub reneged on a ticket they sold to a Lakers fan, 3 weeks after he bought them, when they learned that his tickets would be to Kobe Bryant's last game (announced after the ticket purchase). The market price for the tickets rose in the interim, and StubHub canceled the order and refused to reissue the tickets at the same price, citing greed no similarly priced tickets were available. StubHub: the Pharma Bro of ticket sales.

When an Amazon customer complained about poor customer service, he later found a 10-inch dildo in his shopping cart, allegedly placed there by a vindictive Amazon rep. We know some companies can be hard to deal with, but talk about having to bend over and take it...

Measurement / Metrics / Data

Chart of the Week

Brought to you by Zignal Labs, a realtime, cross media analytics platform.

This week, the automotive-heavy announcements at CES caught our attention. We expected much from Ford, a long-time CES attendee, which was rumored to be making a Google-related announcement. Their Amazon news, as well as their overall mobility plan they shared in their keynote was enough to create a spike that just barely peaked over Faraday Future's electric concept vehicle - although Faraday Future got more sustained volume on January 5.

Then came Chevrolet's announcement about the all-electric and more affordable Bolt, which grabbed attention on January 6. We can see the major spike from Chevy here:

To put the two days in perspective, here's the comparison between the performance of the two major Detroit car brands against each other:

Chevy's spike is more pronounced, but Ford and Faraday Future each had some sustained conversation. Who do you think won?

* Answer to the trivia question above:

Joseph and Paul Galvin, along with William Lear, developed the first audio automobile dashboard in 1930 and called it the — wait for it — Motorola, for "motorized Victrola." My, how times have changed. And Lenovo has decreed that Motorola Mobility (all that's left of the storied brand) will henceforth simply be known as Moto.

When You Have the Time: Essential Watching / Listening / Reading

When you're putting together a presentation, make sure it falls into one of three categories: Why? — they're unaware of the problem; What Now? — they're open and interested to learn; and How? — they're aware and ready.

Each Monday we publish this newsletter that includes a series of links about current events and trends in the worlds of technology, business, digital communications and marketing in order to keep leaders up to date on changes, newsworthy items and content that might be useful in your job. A new issue is available every Monday morning. Please subscribe to keep up to date on developments.

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Welcome

Scott Monty is a neoclassical digital executive. As a keynote speaker, advisor and recovering Fortune 10 executive, he gives talks to companies and industry organizations about the need to relentlessly focus on the customer. He uses his knowledge of historic literature, philosophy and poetry, together with his ability to trend-spot to show audiences that the key to our future is in understanding timeless wisdom about human nature.